We learned last week that Arizona colleges have a lousy graduation rate. Except it turns out our state colleges’ graduation rates rank pretty well nationwide, but our for-profits, like the huge Huckster U University of Phoenix, drag down the average. This week we learn that TUSD needs lots more teachers—tons more!—than other Tucson area districts, which gives people one more reason to cluck their tongues at the district lots of people are sure is failing compared to other local districts. Except that the raw numbers only tell part of the story.
The Star has a good, long, thoughtful article about Arizona teacher shortages, local and statewide, including one of those fun, informative interactive data pages online. The story gives teacher shortage numbers for all the local districts. TUSD needs a whopping 116 teachers while Marana needs 16.5, Sahuarita needs 16, Catalina Foothills needs 3. Even Sunnyside only needs 40. It looks like the Tucson district is in the deepest of teacher shortage doo-doo compared to its neighbors. But the article leaves out one essential bit of information: the student enrollment for each district. And it leaves out another less essential but important bit of information: each district’s state grade. So let’s put that information into the mix and see what we find.
TUSD needs 116 teachers while Marana only needs 16.5. But TUSD has 49,000 students while Marana only has 12,500 students. If TUSD had the same student population as Marana, it would need 30 teachers. That’s still almost twice as many teachers as Marana when the enrollments are evened out, but it no longer looks like there’s a 7-to-1 gap between the districts. If TUSD were Foothills-sized, it would need 12 teachers. Foothills, however, only needs 4. And if TUSD were Sahuarita-sized, it would need 14 teachers. Sahuarita needs 16, so TUSD actually needs fewer teachers than Sahuarita when enrollments are considered.
I looked at districts’ enrollment figures and the number of teachers they need, then figured out how many teachers each needed for every 1,000 students. There’s still a significant difference. Vail needs .4 teachers per 1,000 students. Foothills needs .6. Both TUSD and Sunnyside need 2.4 teachers per 1,000 students, between four and six times more than Vail and Foothills.
Next I looked at each district’s state grade. With the exception of Sahuarita, districts with the highest state grades need proportionately fewer teachers, and districts with lower state grades need more. It’s not hard to figure out why. If you took a random group of people looking for teaching jobs in the Tucson area and asked where they’d most like to teach, districts like Vail and Catalina Foothills, where family income and student achievement are high, would come up more often than TUSD, where family income and student achievement are far lower. K-12 teaching is a tough job no matter where you are, but it’s less stressful—and for many teachers, more rewarding—working in high rent districts, and there’s a certain prestige value in saying, “Yes, I teach at (ahem) Catalina Foothills High.” The high rent districts will always have an easier time finding teachers just because of who they are, not because they’re doing something right and the low rent districts are doing something wrong. [Note: Flowing Wells is the exception to the rule, with its low income student population, high state grade and low number of teachers needed relative to its size.]
The table below has compiles the information for local districts.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2015.
I agree that it is important to also consider enrollment, but from my understanding this article does not take into account the current number of teachers working in each district which could really change these results.
It’s much easier to face the facts. Teachers are leaving tusd just as fast as the students. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to identify the problem.
It takes guys to admit it.
…and GUTS. Not guys.
I am curious as to how many of the needed teachers require specialty certifications for exceptional ed positions, or various elective categories, or for special language needs. Is there any comparable data available which would differentiate the positions? Are there levels such as primary, intermediate, middle school, or high school which stand out as needing more teachers than others? Let’s do some more data disaggregation or data mining to make clearer what is going on. I am aware that TUSD has many more specialty programs than other districts, especially with exceptional ed.
There is a significant and growing shortage of school administrators and teachers that will only get worse as more of the baby boomers retire. Urban districts like TUSD will feel the need first, but suburban districts like Vail and Catalina Foothills will also be scrambling to find qualified applicants for all their vacancies, especially in high need areas like, math, special education and science. Unless and until we provide young people with more reasons to choose education as a profession, this problem will get bigger with each passing year. It will take leadership from our elected officials and a willingness on all our parts to commit the necessary resources to make that happen.
Maybe we need to pay them more. Weird how many problems in this country would go away if we would pay our bills, meaning people would pay their taxes to cover the services we need.
David, to what do you attribute FW’s continuing success in the face of many of the same obstacles as TUSD and SUSD?
TUSD teachers have been granted one $500. pay raise in ten years. Word gets around.
One $500. pay raise in tens years, is not a pay raise. It is a pay cut. Thanks for pointing out the relationship of school districts and family incomes. We know that childhood poverty matters when it comes to student success. We also know that highly valued great teachers matter! Arizona, through its elected representatives, is reaping what it has sowed by not caring about either childhood poverty or valuing teachers.
Flowing Wells demographics are unusual. The North-South orientation of the district means high-income schools in the North, with much lower incomes in the South.